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Internet Explorer Turns 15

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the and-the-internet-has-never-been-the-same dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Software giant Microsoft's Internet Explorer turned 15 years old on Monday. The company recently said it would launch the Internet Explorer 9 public beta version on September 15, 2010. The software giant launched the first version of the browser, Internet Explorer 1, on August 16, 1995. It was a revised version of Spyglass Mosaic, which Microsoft had licensed from Spyglass Inc."

5 of 271 comments (clear)

  1. Memories by Drakkenmensch · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I remember being a college student back in 1993 running Mosaic and Pine from our university's Unix architecture. Ah, those were the days!

  2. Spyglass got pwned! by Henriok · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Microsoft licensed Mosaic under the promise of paying Spyglass royalties based on revenue. But then MS released it for free and Spyglass got nothing. This must be one of Microsoft's finest deals.

    --

    - Henrik

    - when the Shadows descend -
    1. Re:Spyglass got pwned! by MojoRilla · · Score: 4, Interesting

      They kissed and made up in the end (at least Spyglass got $8 million), according to this article.

  3. Re:It's hard to believe... by dmgxmichael · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Hehe, yup. Netscape 4 is FAR, FAR worse than IE 4 on its worst day. I still remember it and honestly I was more glad of its demise from the support list than I will be of IE 6's. IE 6 isn't a bad browser in and of itself, it just was allowed to stay around too long as Microsoft rested on their laurels. If IE 7 had come out in 2003 or 2004 no one would be complaining about IE in general or IE 6 in particular.

  4. Re:It's hard to believe... by devent · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Anyone who wonders why IE 6 became the de facto standard just needs to find a download of Netscape Communicator.

    I don't get it. IE became the defacto standard because it was pre-installed on MS Windows. And MS Windows became the defactor standard because it comes with every computer pre-installed.

    If, back then, the Netscape Communicator were pre-installed, the Netscape Communicator would have been the defacto standard. But Netscape didn't own an operation system. Yes, it's nice to have an operation system which with you can bundle stuff. It's good that besides ActiveX MS didn't really done anything with the IE. At least we are not living like in South Korea where you need to have IE with ActiveX to do any online banking.

    What exactly did MS anyway with the 90% market share of IE? I can't remember any technology that was really needed back then. I think they were just happy to have the market share. Right now I can't see anything that the dominance of IE have left us.

    --
    http://www.mueller-public.de - My site http://www.anr-institute.com/ - Advanced Natural Research Institute